92 



INDIA. 



In some nut, children are employed, after the out- 

 line is drawn, in putting on the principal colours; but 

 the shades and more delicate parts are executed by the 

 most skilful workmen, the cloth being extended on a 

 small narrow table. The brushes and pencils employ- 

 ed, and mentioned in the extract from Mr. Parkes, are 

 made either of the fibres of the rhind of the cocoa-nut, 

 beaten so as to give it the appearance of horse hair ; 

 ( this is very elastic, and therefore answers the purpose 

 very well, ) or they are made, in those cases which re- 

 quire a firmer and finer point, of a piece of bamboo 

 split. A little cotton-wool is fixed about an inch above 



Capital em- 

 ployed. 



the wives and daughters of the husbandmen and ma- 

 nufacturers, who could not otherwise be so usefully 

 employed, at least during ^he hot and rainy seasons. 

 The number of weavers, masters and journeymen, Mr 

 Grant estimates at 300,000, who are generally employ, 

 ed in making three million of pieces of cloth annually, 

 the prime cost of which is about 2 krore and 65 lacks 

 of rupees ; yet, as the amount of thread is not above 

 half the price of the finished manufacture, and as the 

 capital laid out in the purchase of such materials sel- 

 dom or ever can equal the consumption of two months 

 labour, so the whole productive stock at any time re- 



Statistics. 



the extremity to retain the colour, and this the work- quired, or actually in use, for completing all those beau- 



man presses to make the colour descend to the pencil 



We are not acquainted with the nature of all the 

 dyes which the Indians employ > but some of them are 

 well known. The indigo is the principal. The Romans 

 were acquainted with the deep blu^ colour of this dye, 

 and gave it the name of Indicum. By them it was held 

 in high estimation. It is mentioned, under the name 

 of Indicum nigrum, among the articles of importation 

 from India, in the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea. The 

 red and the blue are the colours of most conspicuous 

 lustre and beauty in the cotton and silk stuffs received 

 from India at present ; and this seems to have been the 

 case in the time of the ancients, for Indian dyers was 

 the ancient name of those who dyed either of these co- 

 lours with great perfection and delicacy. The source of 

 the blue colour has been just mentioned. The red is 

 dyed principally by means of gum lac. This also was 

 known to the ancients. Ctesias appears to have learnt 

 pretty accurately the nature of the insect which pro- 

 duces it ; and he expresses his admiration at the beauty 

 of the colour which it produces. The insect which 

 supplies the gum lac is found on a tree called bihar in 

 Assam, a country to the north-east of Bengal ; on a tree 

 called jala, growing on many of the hills in the Rajah 

 of Mysore's territories ; and in other parts of India. 

 There are also some flowers, roots, and fruits, which 

 are employed to dye red ; but the red of the gum lac is 

 the most delicate and beautiful. The semecarpus ana- 

 cardium, or marking nut, which is a native of all the 

 mountainous regions of India, is used for giving a du- 

 rable black stain to the cotton cloth ; and a yellow dye 

 is supplied by the curcuma, or Indian saffron. 



Of the capital employed in the cotton manufacture 

 of India generally, it is impossible to form even the 

 slightest conjecture. The materials for the following 

 estimate of the capital employed in this manufacture 

 in Bengal, are supplied by Mr. Grant, in his Analysis 

 of the Finances of that Province, printed in the Fifth 

 Report on the Affairs of the East India Company. He 

 supposes, that the produce of cotton in Bengal is equal 

 to four lacks of maunds ; which, after losing three- 

 fourths of its gross weight, by the operations of clean- 

 ing and dressing, will sell for about twelve lacks of ru- 

 pees. There is, besides, imported into Bengal, for the 

 use of the cotton manufacturers, cotton from Surat and 

 Mirzapore, in the district of Benares, of the value of 

 six lacks of rupees ; so that the total value of the rude 



Silk manu- 

 facture. 



Where 

 tied on. 



tiful fabrics, so much the object of our admiration, after 

 allowing a loom, of six rupees, to be renewed once in 

 20 years for every workman, will not exceed 25 lacks 

 of rupees. 



The manufacture of silk next claims our notice. 

 Though the Romans procured their silk from China, 

 and were obliged to depend upon the Persians for a 

 supply of it, there is little doubt that, at this period, it 

 was manufactured in Hindostan. In the Sanscrit there 

 are names for the silk worm and manufactured silk ; 

 and what is more decisive on this point, there are, and 

 appears to have been from the remotest times, two 

 castes of Hindoos, whose respective employments were 

 the feeding of silk worms and the spinning of silk. In 

 the year 1762, when the power of the East India Com- 

 pany was pretty firmly established in Hindostan Pro- 

 per, they sent over some natives of Italy to introduce 

 the Italian mode of spinning. The first attempt to 

 establish a silk manufacture was a little below Calcut- 

 ta; this, however, did not succeed. In the year 1773, 

 buildings for that purpose were erected at Jungeypoor, 

 in the Raujeshy district of Bengal ; and in the year 

 1803, about 3000 people were employed here. This is 

 the greatest silk station of the East India Company : 

 The others are at Cossirabazar, Mauldah, Bauleah, 

 Commercolly, Radnagoor, and Rungpoor. It is calcu- 

 lated, that the district of Raujeshy, in which these 

 places are situated, supplies four-fifths of. all the silk, 

 raw or manufactured, used in, or exported from Hin- 

 dostan. The raising of silk worms is principally con- 

 fined to a part of the district of Burdwan, and to the 

 vicinity of the Bhagirathi and Great Ganges, from 

 the fork of these rivers, for about 100 miles down 

 their streams. The introduction of the silk worm has 

 not yet succeeded in the warmer districts of Hindos- 

 tan, but it is probable that the country above the 

 Ghauts, where the climate is temperate, will be found 

 suitable. 



The mulberry tree used for feeding the worms is the Mulberries, 

 Oriental ; the dryness of the soil, it is supposed, is pre- 

 judicial to the China mulberry. The expense of plant- 

 ing this tree on a biggah of land is about 14 rupees ; 

 and the annual expenses afterwards, 9 rupees. Twenty 

 rupees are generally given by the feeders, for the 

 leaves of a biggah. From one biggah, two maunds of 

 cocoons may be produced ; and two seer of reeled silk 

 is the produce of one maund. Four crops of mulberry 



materials used in the cotton manufactures of Bengal leaves are obtained from the same field in the course 

 may be estimated at 18 lacks of rnnops TK ,:. . < p*v. 



may lye estimated at 18 lacks of rupees. The price~of 

 fine thread is enhanced to 16 times the value of the 

 raw material ; yet it is a remarkable fact, that the la- 

 pur which thus enhances the value of it, scarcely 

 yields a subsistence of nine anas, or about 18 pence per 

 month, being no more than three farthings a day to 

 each spinner, perhaps 18,000 in all. They could not 

 labour TO cheaply, were it not that they are principally 



of the year. 



Wild silk worms are common in the forests of Silhit, 

 Assam, and the Decan ; from them a kind of coarse 

 silk, 'Called tisser, is procured, which is very far in- 

 ferior in colour and lustre to the other silk. In Silhit, 

 it is manufactured into a kind of goods called mugga- 

 dooties ; but it is principally manufactured, mixed 

 with wool or cotton, into an article in considerable re- 



Wiid silk 

 worms. 



